Before It's Too Late
by LaydeeGodiva
Summary: Nick isn't the relationship type and teamwork isn't something he does well. After he's separated from his  god-forbid  friends, what will he do and why can't he stop thinking about that damned mechanic?  Nick/Ellis; nothing hardcore, mostly Nick angst
1. In Which Nick is Awkward

**WARNING: **Lots of cursing. I assigned a 'T' rating, because I feel that most teens are mature enough to handle the F-Bomb occasionally.

**DOUBLE WARNING: **You've clicked on a male/male relationship fan-fiction. If you are here by mistake, please re-direct yourself because I want not your silly, nasty reviews. If you are indeed here because you want to be, by all means, read on.

I'm a heavy advocate of Nick angst, so there is much of it throughout this fic. You've been warned.

_And is it just me, or is Nick a Special Infected **magnet**?_

Disclaimer: I don't own L4D2 and all that jazz.

Enjoy

* * *

"God damned mealy-mouthed bastards. Nng." Nick held his side as he stumbled toward the red sanctuary of the safe house door. He held his Desert Eagle in one hand while trying to keep pressure on the sizeable gouge in his side, inflicted by a particularly persistent Hunter. "I hate zombies." A pained grimace crossed his features. "I really screwed the pooch back there. Fuck." He fell against the wall beside the safe room door, panting. With a sickening slurp, he pulled his hand away from his side, closing his eyes against the shock of red that greeted him. Blood covered his hand, his white suit and navy shirt. He wiped his hand against his slacks and dug into his pocket, searching for the bottle of pain pills he knew he had somewhere. When he pulled it out and shook it, an exasperated moan escaped his lips.

"Great. One left."

To be honest, Nick was lucky he hadn't been completely swamped by infected on his way to the safe room. Rochelle had been smart enough to throw a pipe bomb and that had been effective in distracting them for a little bit, but Coach and Rochelle had—instead of running for safety like a normal person—tried to keep the zombies at bay. Nick had decided to take the _smart_ way out and run for his life. Ellis had been on his heels, shouting something about zombies and mud-men and his god-damned friend Keith; Nick hadn't been listening. He had been more intent on saving his ass before another horde showed up. He had heard Coach and Ro behind him again, along with Ellis. Nick had already been gripping his side before the horde had attacked them the first time, and—since no one had a med-kit—he wasn't moving too fast.

To make matters worse, the roar of a Tank had interrupted their progress and a slab of concrete had landed only feet from Nick, making the ground erupt dirt and grass and rocks.

"TANK!" Nick had been the first to actually see the damned thing, but Ellis had shouted. Coach and Ro had started to unload into the monster of an infected before it was in range, and Nick had brought up his Desert Eagle. Behind him, Ellis had loaded his combat shotgun.

And it was at that moment that something had leaped onto Nick's shoulders.

"Little guy!" Nick had raised his arms, trying to beat the Jockey off of him as it forced him toward the Tank, away from the Tank, veering to the left of the Tank. "Kill this thing!" A stray bullet had finally caught the infected in the head and it pitched forward from his shoulders and Nick had stood, panting, yards away from his teammates. He had turned wildly, looking back for Ro and Coach and Ellis, and a giant fist collided with his gut, sending him flying backward. When he had hit the ground, he was sure he'd broken ribs, if not punctured a lung, and he lay, gasping for breath. He could hear the heartbeat in his ears, watching as the Tank advanced toward him. _This is it_ he had thought grimly. _I'm about to die. I'm about to die, and I didn't even get to tell—_

The Tank had pitched forward suddenly and spun angrily, facing the hail of bullets from Ro and Coach. Nick had pushed himself to his feet as Ellis shouted, "Get to the safe room!"

Nick hadn't needed to be told twice, and he ran. He ran and abandoned his teammates to save his own ass.

Now, as he slid down the wall just outside the safe room, turning the pill bottle in one hand and clutching the Desert Eagle with the other, he felt like the dirties piece of trash in the world. He shook his head, letting a dry chuckle escape his lips. "Why the hell did I do that?" he asked himself quietly. The world around him was silent and offered him no answer, not even the moan of a zombie or the shriek of a Hunter. "Why did I do that?" he shouted, immediately regretting doing so as a strong pain shot through his side. He doubled over and watched as more blood oozed through the tear in his navy shirt. He dropped the pill bottle and his pistol to clutch his side with both hands, grimacing and leaning back against the wall.

He could probably make it into the safe room if he crawled. Dropping one hand back to grip his Desert Eagle, he scooted toward the red door.

An unearthly scream pierced the air and he snapped his head to the source. In front of him, not fifteen yards, a Hunter was crouched, poised and ready to pounce. Nick drew his lips into a tight, thin line, and he raised his Desert Eagle in one shaking hand. "Come on, you scrawny little bitch," he muttered, bringing his other hand up to clutch the bottom of the gun. "I fucking dare you to jump. I fucking double dog dare you, you little—"

The Hunter lunged forward and Nick let out a round, the report echoing off the walls that surrounded him. The Hunter fell short and cried out a dying shriek, but the killing shot wasn't from Nick. He knew he missed; he missed on purpose. What the hell did he think living was going to do for him? He'd likely been the death of his teammates—his (god-forbid) friends—and he wasn't going to last much longer anyway. He was going to delude himself into thinking he tried to go out valiantly, to go out fighting instead of waiting for death like a coward. Nick lowered the smoking end of the pistol into his lap and stared past the dead body of the Hunter.

"Ellis." His voice was quiet and his vision had started to fade at the edges. He could see the familiar yellow shirt as Ellis was suddenly right next to him. Behind him stood the pink of Ro and the purple of Coach, both visibly hurt, but alive.

"Aw, man, Nick. Yer bleedin' out," Ellis said, grabbing the bottle of pain pills from the ground next to Nick. "Here, take these." He shook the bottle. "Uh. Here, take this." The native Southerner dumped the single pill out into his hand and extended it toward Nick.

"I'm used to getting presents from cute girls," Nick mumbled with a small smile, taking the pill between two bloodstained fingers. "Not some hick in overalls."

"Well, this hick pro'ly just saved yer ass," Ellis replied indignantly.

"Could we maybe get inside, boys?" Ro asked, looking behind her toward the bus station, an uneasy look on her features. Nick tossed back the pill and pushed himself off of the wall and onto his knees.

"Lemme give ya a hand." Ellis took him by the arm, a surprisingly gentle gesture for someone with as much enthusiasm as Ellis had, and lifted him. With Ellis' help, Nick managed to make it to his feet. One step and he was falling against Ellis, who supported him with ease.

Nick grumbled something and Ellis looked away, at the ground and the sky and back toward the bus station. "Let's get inside," Ro said, pulling open the safe room door. Coach was inside first, then Ro and finally Nick and Ellis. When the door was closed and Coach had moved several old filing cabinets and whatever else he could find in front of it, Nick addressed Ellis, who still had his arm around the gambler's waist.

"You can let go of me anytime now, Overalls," he said and a furious blush crossed Ellis' face, unnoticeable in the dim lighting of the safe room.

"Sorry," he mumbled, moving his arm carefully. "You gonna be all right?"

"I'll be fine," Nick said as he lowered himself onto the ground against a wall. "Just, make yourself useful and grab me a med-kit." Ellis nodded dutifully and walked to the small table where assorted supplies had been left by survivors before them. Nick watched him for a moment and then let his eyelids fall closed, taking in a deep breath. _I can't believe we actually made it through that_, he thought, releasing the breath through his nose.

A hot exhale hit his face and his eyes flew open. Ellis was crouched in front of him, only inches from Nick's nose, holding the med-kit in both hands. Nick's cheeks raced through several shades of red before settling on a nice rosy color and his green eyes went wide. "Ellis! What the hell!" he hissed, trying unsuccessfully to melt into the wall behind him.

"What?" Ellis asked. Clearly he was clueless to the lack of proximity between them and that those baby-blue eyes of his were practically irresis—

Nick bit his tongue. "Thanks for the med-kit." He snatched it out of Ellis' hands. The mechanic promptly snatched it back.

"No way, ho-zay," he said, pulling out a length of gauze from the red pack. "Yer too hurt to patch yerself up. I kin do it. Lift up yer shirt."

"ARE YOU INSANE?" Nick's face was red-hot and he didn't have to have a mirror to know it was beet red. "I can do it myself." He grabbed for the med-kit but Ellis held it out of his reach.

"No." The younger man puckered his lips and furrowed his eyebrows together. "I'll do it. Just relax."

Nick sunk his teeth into his lower lip, staring hard at Ellis. "Fine," he finally conceded, unbuttoning his shirt (not that there was too much left to unbutton). His face screwed up in a contortion of evident pain as he peeled the fabric from where it seemed to have fuse with his bleeding side. Bits of coagulated blood came away with the shirt and fresh red hemoglobin came to the surface of the wound where the forming scabs had been.

"Aw, shit, Nick." Ellis picked up his hat to scratch the top of his head. "That Hunter did you a mischief. Ho-lee shit."

"Yeah. Thanks for that, Ellis." Nick pushed his suit jacket and shirt from his shoulders and let them fall in a bloody pile at the small of his back. "Just, wrap it up or something." The single pain pill wasn't doing much to quell the deep throbbing in his side. _Stop being a baby, _he mentally reprimanded himself. _You've felt worse after a night of drinking. _He brought one hand up above his eyes, letting out a slow sigh. That's when he realized Ellis hadn't even started cleaning the blood around his injury. _What the hell is this hick—_Nick's thought stopped as he dropped his hand from his eyes and saw Ellis just staring at him. "What's your problem, Ellis?" Nick asked, running a hand through his hair. Ellis snapped out of his daze.

"Wuh-?" He blinked, a vicious blush coloring his cheeks. He dropped his gaze and hurriedly began to wipe away the blood that rimmed the edges of Nick's wound. The gambler frowned, wondering _what_ in the hell had come over the mechanic. _Wonder if all hicks act like this,_ he thought. And then he let his green eyes drop to his bare chest.

Oh.

Nick brought his gaze back up to Ellis and stared at the top knob of the mechanic's hat. He tap danced his fingers across the ground beside him as he watched Ellis tend to his wound. _I guess being a mechanic, you'd better have nimble fingers, _Nick thought, impressed; he could barely feel Ellis' touch as the Georgian wiped away the excess blood before starting to wrap the wound. Then again Nick might not have been able to feel Ellis' touch because of the numbness that engulfed his entire side; he didn't particularly want to think of what kind of tissue damage he was probably suffering from.

It took ten more minutes and all of the gauze in the med-kit before Ellis was happy with his patch job. "There ya go," he said, leaning back on his haunches, still hovering above Nick's legs. "Ya need anything else?" Nick curled his still-tapping fingers into a fist and sucked in his lower lip.

"Actually, Ellis," he began and Ellis stopped pushing himself to his feet.

"Huh?"

Nick paused. Ellis dropped back into his crouch and stared at Nick, his eyes constantly flicking down to the gambler's chest, a movement almost missed in the low light. Nick clenched his fists tighter against his sides. He pushed himself forward, his face inches from Ellis' and the mechanic recoiled slightly, the blush returning to his face.

"Nick," he said quietly, leaning back a little more. Nick just smiled.

Then he grabbed his jacket and shirt from behind him and leaned back against the wall. Ellis was frozen when he crouched, still poised in a leaned-back position, staring at Nick with a slack-jaw.

"Thanks for the patch job, Ellis." Nick grinned, leaning his head against the wall and closing his eyes. He was about ready to call it a day and take a nice long nap.

"Uh. Yeah. No problem, Nick." Ellis paused, and Nick could still feel him hovering above his legs. Then he felt Ellis' hot breath on his cheek and the brush of the mechanic's dry lips against his jaw-line. A shudder ran down Nick's spine and his eyes snapped open as Ellis pulled himself away from the gambler's face. "Try not to get pounced again, okay?" he said, smiling a wide, goofy smile.

A low chuckle sounded from the back of Nick's throat and he closed his eyes again.

"You got it, Overalls."


	2. In Which Nick is Injured

**WARNING: **Cursing and male/male relationships. You were warned.

Oh, and lots of Nick pain and angst and all that fun stuff associated with gnarly injuries and near-death, impossible to survive instances in which the character prevails nonetheless.

Disclaimer: Don't own L4D2 and all that jazz.

* * *

"Ugh, it stinks inside my head!"

Nick hated the sewer. He hated fighting zombies, sure, but he hated fighting zombies while wading knee-deep through other people's shit in a dark sewer even more. He had his Desert Eagle tightly clutched in both hands, the fully-loaded AK-47 snug against his back. The first down the ladder, he was busy making sure the small tunnel they were putting themselves into was partially safe, at least. The report from his gun echoed down the entire length of the small corridor as he blew a hole through the neck of an approaching zombie, causing the three infected behind to stumble. They were taken care of, the last one falling as Ellis dropped down the ladder, Coach and Ro directly behind him.

"Aw man, the sewer! All right!" Nick stared at Ellis in disbelief, ready to make a comment about what a dumb southern hick he was. His jaw remained locked as he remembered a couple nights before, back in the last safe room. He turned away, facing the mouth of the corridor.

"Let's just get out of here," he muttered, moving forward. A couple of zombies funneled into the small space, and from behind Nick came immediate gunfire, bullets speeding past him and burying themselves into the skulls of the zombies. The gambler whirled around. "_Y'all_ want to stop shooting at me?" he asked Ro and Ellis, both of whom had fired, his voice a threatening growl.

"Sor—"

"SHH."

All of them stopped and Coach held a finger against his lips. Then, from the recesses of the sewer opening in front of them came the distinct sob of a Witch.

"Lights out," Nick hissed, flicking off his flashlight with the others. This was the last thing he wanted: to face a Witch in a pitch black sewer with god-knows how many zombies waiting to tear off his flesh and suck on his eyeballs. He made sure there was a round in the chamber of his Desert Eagle. "Let's go. Quietly." He inched down the corridor. As the Witch's cries were amplified, resounding as though the team had been surrounded by the deceiving infected, Nick knew they'd reached the end of the corridor and were in the main part of the sewer. "The ladder should be straight ahead," he whispered, taking several steps forward, only to run right into an infected. It turned, angry, and Nick stumbled backward, running into Coach's broad chest. Ro killed the zombie with a well-placed machete strike, decapitating the monstrosity.

The Witch's voice rose to an angry octave, sounding like a buzz-saw in the dank sewer.

"Uhh…guys?"

Ellis' voice came from somewhere to Nick's right and the gambler turned, his palms sweaty around the grip of his pistol. "El—"

"WITCH!"

The Witch let out a confidence-shattering shriek. Ellis sprinted through the murky water, toward Nick and Coach and Ro, splashing black who-knew-what everywhere. Nick flicked his flashlight on, and it caught the red eyes of the Witch and glinted off her talons. She was only feet behind Ellis, and Nick, not thinking, surged forward toward her, raising his Desert Eagle and taking aim.

Not thinking is a very loose term. Nick was thinking, but he wasn't thinking logically and he certainly wasn't thinking about his own safety. What he was thinking that if this Witch got to Ellis the mechanic wouldn't stand a chance, and Nick wasn't about to let the one person that might have even the slightest chance of holding any feelings (that weren't anger or complete hatred) toward him be killed in a dank sewer by an enraged infected bitch with proximity issues worse than his ex-wife's.

There's a funny thing about Witches: they may go after the one that startles them, but they'll be more than happy to change targets to whoever's unloading their Desert Eagle rounds into their chest and abdomen.

The report from Nick's gun shattered the air in the sewer and the fire that exploded from the end lit up the Witch's face, her pasty skin, her sharp talons. She shrieked and brought both hands up as Nick's pistol clicked empty.

"Oh shi—!"

The Witch brought her talons down fast, breaking through the barrier Nick had tried to make with his arms, slashing deep gouges into his chest, the force from her blows dropping the gambler like a rock into the sewage below. Water—and god-knows what else—rushed into his ears, into his nose and his open mouth as he let out a strangled scream as the Witch scored his chest with her talons. Warm blood heated the water around him. Nick suddenly felt lighter, and he thought, maybe, that the Witch had torn all of his organs from his body cavity and that this is what it felt like to die.

But, he realized soon enough that the lack of weight was the absence of the Witch's slashing talons. He was being suddenly hoisted from the water, fervent hands grasping at him, frantic voices all speaking at once, furious gunfire thundering throughout the chamber; it was all too much, and Nick lost his mind to darkness.

* * *

"Nick! Nick! Oh lord, Nick!" Ellis had one arm wrapped around the gambler, crouching in the shit and trash and muck that floated around in a congealed mass beneath him. In his other hand was a smaller caliber pistol that he was using as a tool of zombie-destruction, annihilating the horde as they streamed in from the corridor and the ladder and the various outlets from the large central cavity he and the others were in.

Ellis could feel Nick's warm blood as it seeped from the gambler's chest and soaked through his own shirt, the fabric sticking to his chest with hot red glue. "Ho-lee shit! Where they all comin' from!" Ellis shouted above the deafening roar of infected, their angry cries and screams bouncing off the walls of the cavity, their numbers instantly multiplied by sound alone.

"Just keep shooting!" Ro yelled, slicing out with her machete as Coach, beside her, swung his assault rifle in a gaping arch, dismembering and decapitating and eviscerating zombies left and right. Arms flew off and dark black blood coated the survivors and the dying screams of the infected tapered off until only one sound remained: the panting of the three standing immune. Ellis dropped his pistol immediately, grabbing Nick with both arms.

"We gotta get outta the sewer, man," he said, his hands gripped tight around the soiled fabric of Nick's blazer.

Ellis may have been born an uneducated Southern boy, but he knew about infections (all his times with Keith had taught him that) and he knew that sewer water plus open chest wounds wouldn't make for a pretty heal. Coach and Ro both faced him and the former came forward. "Let me take him," he offered and for a moment, Ellis' grip on Nick's blazer tightened. He sucked in his lower lip.

"I kin carry him," he said, voice quiet, nearly drowned out by the sound of rushing water elsewhere in the vast sewer system.

"Not up that ladder you can't." Coach pushed his rifle beneath his arm, pulling at the strap until the still-warm barrel rested against his back. "Once we get up that ladder we'll see about findin' some pills or something, but he ain't gonna last if you pussy-foot around." Only with this statement did Ellis loosen his grip on Nick, relinquishing him to Coach who picked him up with cautious ease. Ro was already standing next to the ladder, and she motioned for them to hurry.

"Before another horde shows up."

Ellis nodded and followed Coach. His gaze fell to his shirt and he felt sick immediately. A large red stain made the yellow seem a dark orange and it covered the printing across the mechanic's chest. Ellis wouldn't have felt so sick if it had been his blood, but it wasn't his; it was Nick's. Nick, who called him 'Overalls' and 'Hick'; Nick, who made funny of Jimmy Gibbs Jr. and the Midnight Riders; Nick, who saved his ass more than once from Jockeys and Smokers and Hunters; Nick, who Ellis had shared with the single, happy event that had happened this entire apocalypse—a kiss on the cheek; Nick, who threw himself in front of a goddamned _Witch_ to save him.

Nick, who was probably going to die.

Ellis clambered up the ladder, his boots slipping on the metal rungs more than once as he hurried up after Ro and Coach. He popped his head up.

"Look at all those cars," Ro whispered, staring at the few zombies that meandered through the maze of cars, all primed, waiting for a response so their alarms could blare. The infected hadn't noticed the survivors yet.

"Just use yer machete," Ellis said as he pulled himself all the way out of the sewer. He whipped his head around, searching for—

"Over here, boy." Coach motioned with his arm to the bed of a small pickup, the tailgate down. Ellis almost tripped rushing over to him and he ran into the side of the truck, using the momentum to lean halfway into the bed, blue eyes searching. "I ain't promisin' anything, Ellis. He took a beatin' back there." Biting his lower lip, Ellis nodded.

Sure, he may have let Keith talk him into wrestling with a gator, and sure, he may have let Keith talk him into swinging from one of the bayou trees on a less-than-reliable rope out over a bog of indeterminable depth, but Ellis wasn't dumb. At least, he liked to think he wasn't as dumb as Coach and Ro and Nick thought he was. He knew, however, what a bad wound looked like (he'd seen them enough times on Keith) and this was one bad wound.

It didn't look as though Nick's shirt had ever had a front to it. His shirt was some fashion designer's Frankenstein creation, shreds of fabric clinging by literal threads to the rest of the navy blue button-up, the color made a full shade darker by the blood that covered Nick's chest and abdomen and everything. The gauze and tape—the same that Ellis had wrapped around Nick's side not two days prior—was a sickly brown. Everything on Nick held a glistening wet film of sewage water. The only solace Ellis found was the slow and shaky rising of Nick's bloody chest.

"Aw, Nick," Ellis muttered, brushing the tips of his fingers against the gambler's cheek lightly.

"I'll help Ro look for a med kit," Coach offered. "You gonna be fine by yourself?" Ellis nodded.

"I got my axe," he said. "And my pistol and a bile jar, so if they come anywhere near, I kin distract 'em for at least a little bit."

Coach gave him one nod. "We'll be back quick." With that last statement he disappeared behind one of the support columns for the highway above and into the maze of cars.

Ellis pulled his cap off by the bill. His almost-blonde hair was curly and flyaway, messed up in more than one place by his cap and matted with dirt and old blood. He ran his hand through it, trying to loosen it up a little bit; it failed horribly and his hair ended up looking like his head had been sucked on by a giant squid. He grumbled in irritation, running both hands furiously through his hair until it nearly all stood up on end.

Then, from behind him, he heard the coughing and hacking and sputtering of a Smoker. Shoving his cap back on his head, he reached for his axe as the slick, slimy tongue wrapped itself around his abdomen and chest. "N-no!" he shouted, grabbing frantically for the edge of the truck-bed and missing by centimeters. The Smoker dragged him back and he screamed, screamed for help as he tried to pull the tongue from his chest in vain. "HELP!"

This was it, Ellis knew. He'd had his shares of close-calls with Keith before the infection hit, but he knew (mostly) that he would make it through being burned and run over by an ATV and swallowing about a gallon of bayou water. This was different, and once that Smoker got to him and dug its claws into Ellis' back, he knew he wouldn't be making it back, wouldn't be going home, wouldn't be seeing Nick again.

The gunshots echoed off the walls of the impound yard, each successive round blending into the last into a deafening stream of gunfire. The tongue around Ellis' waist went slack and he jerked it off with such ferocity that it tore in more than one place. The mechanic fell onto his hands, panting. He looked up for Coach or Ro, sure that they must have heard him and took out the Smoker.

Then his eyes fell on the truck and Nick, supported up on his elbow, Ellis' pistol clutched in one hand. Even from twenty yards, Ellis could make out the tightness of Nick's jaw from clenching his teeth and the sweat on his brow, cutting lines down his face as the droplets rolled through the grime.

"Nick!" Ellis was on his feet, stumbling and tripping over the Smoker tongue as he ran for the truck bed. 


End file.
